GRIN­NING TIGER

Un­for­tu­nately, kitsch is not cool, es­pe­cially when it causes peo­ple to mock a mil­i­tary mas­cot. This car­toon­ish, grin­ning tiger statue had for six years stood guard at the en­trance to Sub­dis­trict Mil­i­tary Com­mand 1123 in Cisewu, Garut, West Java. In early 2017, pho­tos of the tiger be­gan ap­pear­ing in hu­mor­ous memes, mock­ing its lack of fe­roc­ity. Stung by the jokes, the Sili­wangi Mil­i­tary Com­mand in March 2017 de­stroyed the statue. Later that month, a more men­ac­ing tiger statue was in­stalled. The Army said it would re­view about 360 tiger stat­ues at other bases to check whether they ap­pro­pri­ately re­flect mil­i­tary author­ity. The mas­cot was in­spired by the leg­end that King Sili­wangi of Sunda’s Hindu king­dom was guarded by sa­cred tigers and could even trans­form him­self into a tiger. Many peo­ple felt the grin­ning tiger statue should have been pre­served as a tourist at­trac­tion.